Out and About Campers Summit campervan

Out and About Campers steps into the big league with its first campervan conversion on a VW Crafter

It’s fair to say Out and About Campers’ boss, Dan Douglass, is a bit of a thrill seeker. He spent the 10 years before starting the business as a professional skydive instructor. And currently he is studying for his helicopter pilot’s licence. So, after jumping out of planes for a living, starting a campervan conversion company might not seem quite as daunting a prospect as it would to the rest of us.

Dan initially started out building campervans for himself, but with the explosion in demand in the wake of Covid, he decided to take the plunge and turn it into a business. Like many others, Out and About Campers began life in 2020 at the height of the post-lockdown campervan boom. However, some of those new converters are vanishing as quickly as they appeared. 

But Out and About was one of the success stories – and the company now makes more than 70 campers a year, either on base vehicles it sources or converting customers’ own vans. 

For companies like this, the relationship with the customer is as important as the quality of the conversion. And, if the friendly couple I got talking to at the ever-expanding Out and About HQ in West Sussex is anything to go by, that’s going well. Their Out and About camper, which they love, was in for its annual check-up and they were more than happy to spend the morning chatting and sharing stories of their campervan adventures.

VW Crafter base vehicle

I was there to pick up the new Summit, the latest design from Dan and his team. Until now, Out and About has been known for its VW Transporter conversions, but its latest offering is based on the T6.1’s big brother, the Crafter.

It’s a sensible move, reflecting the fact that many customers want to upsize from a T6 or T6.1 to something rather more spacious, without losing the build quality and driver appeal that Volkswagen can provide. A conversion on the Crafter – or the equivalent MAN TGE – allows a vehicle with proper on-board toilet facilities and a shower, as well as full headroom and more space to move around than in a T6.1.

The new model’s design has been in the pipeline since 2023 under the code name Project Summit – the concept behind it is that it’s a luxury campervan with some off-grid capability. So, inside you’ve got an impressively well-appointed kitchen, a comfortable lounge that converts into a double bed, a surprisingly spacious shower room and loo at the back and – on the model I tested – a pop-top roof with another double bed reached via a ladder. 

The off-grid element comes from the solar panel on the roof, the 63-litre underslung fresh water tank (with a defrosting facility for cold weather) and the diesel space and hot water heating. The idea is that you should have enough power, water and heat to keep you self-sufficient for a few days. However, that fresh water capacity seems small if you’re planning to use the shower and there’s no fitted grey waste tank. For winter camping, the MV Airo diesel heater has a 3kW output.

Crafter-based campervans do not come cheap and the conversion alone here (on your own VW van) starts at £38,000 and, if you go for the Atek pop-top, you can add just under £10k to the bill. 

Then the six-metre VW Crafter base vehicle costs £56,899 (including upgraded sat-nav, LED headlights, comfort cab seats and automatic transmission) – which brings the total cost to almost £105,000 – and that’s before you add optional extras.

It’s clearly not a budget option, but, if that price tag is within your reach, you will get lots for your money. You just have to take a look around the campervan to see what you’re getting here: plenty of style, plenty of quality and lots of practical features.

Exterior appearance

On the outside, the Summit looks ready for adventure. The Indium Grey body is classy while the contrasting red, orange and yellow graphics down both sides add a burst of sunshine. While it’s not actually a 4x4, its robust appearance – with chunky BFGoodrich all-terrain tyres, 17in Wolfrace Explorer alloys, a front LED lightbar and a heavy-duty storage box attached to the back – certainly gives off an off-road vibe. 

The Crafter is a class leader behind the wheel and offers a refined driving experience, with its automatic gearbox, front and rear parking sensors, Crosswind Assist and Lane Assist. Although it looks big, at 6m long, the Crafter is fairly easy to manoeuvre and I had no problems negotiating the winding country roads around the South Downs National Park. 

Interior layout

Inside, this is not a typical panel van conversion; it’s more than that – and you notice it as soon as you step inside. With its bamboo work surfaces, teal-coloured furniture and stylish wooden tambour doors, Out and About describes the Summit as a ‘hotel on wheels’.

Entering the campervan through the sliding side door, the first thing you encounter is the lounge area. It’s bright and airy but would benefit from a flyscreen that would allow you to leave the sliding door open in hot weather without allowing an invasion of bugs. 

Both the front seats swivel to face the rear three-seater RIB bench. There’s a plethora of fabric, style and colour options for the upholstery and the crash-tested bench features three seatbelts (including Isofix fittings for one child seat), so five can travel in this campervan, although there is only sleeping accommodation for four.

During the day you have a comfortable area in which to eat or relax and the bench is fairly easy to convert into a bed when it comes to settling down for the night. 

The mattress is in three sections. To set it up, you first pull a lever and flip the seat base over, then lift a bar to allow the backrest to be folded flat. It uses an extension panel to combine with the front seats and provide extra length – creating a double bed that is 1.87m long and 1.19m wide. 

Beds are one of those things that are very much down to personal preference and I prefer a firm mattress. Some people find RIB beds to be quite hard and uncomfortable, but that can be remedied with the addition of a mattress topper or a self-inflating mattress.

For storage, the side of the seat has a couple of shallow shelves, where smaller items like phones and books can be stashed, and there is a narrow ledge that runs below the window. Unfortunately, the table was missing from our test vehicle but the Summit’s spec includes a free-standing dining table.

Kitchen design

Where the Summit really shines is in the kitchen area, immediately behind the lounge. This is probably as close to replicating a domestic kitchen as you can manage in a campervan and, if you enjoy cooking on your travels, you’ll love the set-up.

Unlike some campervan kitchens, which can feel claustrophobic and cramped, the Summit layout is open and spacious, with a cooker and fridge on one side and the sink opposite. Both sides have opening windows with mesh screens and blackout blinds. 

The Thetford cooker has three gas burners and a separate grill and full-sized oven that can be used at the same time. There’s a glass lid with gas shut-off and an extractor to get rid of cooking smells at the flick of a switch. Alongside the cooker there’s a very generous worktop area in bamboo wood and under that is a family-sized, 90-litre compressor fridge with a freezer compartment. 

On the opposite wall, there’s a good-sized square stainless-steel sink with a mixer tap and lots more worktop. Below the sink are a couple of soft-close drawers and a pull-out wine rack (or fruit and veg rack if you insist on being more health conscious!). A triangular-shaped cupboard with a tambour door is a clever use of an awkward space at the end of the kitchen unit and integrated top lockers run along both sides of the campervan with dimmable LED strip lights creating a pleasant ambient light in the lounge and living room.

Power sources

The lights and other habitation systems are controlled from the SavvyVan touch panel, which sits on the wall between the lounge and kitchen. Here you’ll also find two 230V sockets and a couple of USB ports, one A and one C. There are two more mains sockets and additional USB outlets at ground level behind the RIB bench. 

Four 230V sockets should be enough, but you can have additional ones fitted at extra cost.

Of course you can plug into campsite hook-up but, for off-grid capability, there’s a 270W solar panel, 300Ah of lithium battery power and a 2,000W inverter, all of which should be enough for a weekend away, or even longer in the summer months.

Optional pop-top roof

If you go for the pop-top option it will cost you an extra £9,800, but it does provide spacious sleeping accommodation for two, turning the campervan into a four-berth and opening it up to the family market. The pop-top set-up is really straightforward: simply unclip the two straps on the access hatch above the lounge and push the roof up – the gas struts will do the rest. 

The ladder slots into a fitting attached to the side of the RIB bench which looked a bit precarious but actually turned out to be perfectly safe for climbing up and down. The ladder attaches to the back of the bench when you’re on the move or it’s not in use. 

In the ‘upstairs’ bedroom there’s a memory foam mattress measuring 2m by 1.20m − big enough for adults or children. There are three windows up top with zip-up mosquito mesh panels and, if the weather is really good, you can unzip the canvas completely for panoramic views. Do remember not to leave young kids unattended up there when it’s fully opened, though!

While opening the pop-top was simple enough, closing it again was less straightforward. The handles are attached to the underside of the roof and are difficult to reach when the roof is open, so it needed some agility and a fair bit of strength to get hold of them and pull the roof down. All the time, you have to make sure the canvas is tucked away and doesn’t get trapped as the roof comes down. Not easy when you’re perched at the top of a ladder! A couple of straps attached to the handles would have made life so much easier – and it’s something that Out and About says it is looking at addressing.

Washroom changes planned

Further design alterations will be taking place in the washroom, which is located right at the rear of the campervan with access from the kitchen or from outside through the rear doors. 

It features a Dometic toilet with an electric flush, a hot and cold shower and a decent amount of cupboard space. While those basic facilities will remain, future versions of the campervan will feature the more traditional moulded plastic in the littlest room. 

Out and About Campers has translated its trademark look from Transporter conversions into the bigger Crafter and created a campervan that is very different to the fixed bed designs offered by many converters. As a result, it offers a more spacious layout with a generous kitchen but with much less storage (better suited as a two-berth). The quality and spec impress, with the only question mark over the water tank capacity.